The Furniture Store. It was an old building in need of a fresh coat of paint. Inside it had several large rooms that my father-in-law designated for different types of furniture and many other items that someone might want or need for their home or apartment. The roof of his store was almost always in need of repair. The rooms had a musty smell, but no one seemed to mind. The store was too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter. When people stepped through the front door they were often amazed at the amount of furniture in the store, and it was sometimes difficult to maneuver to get to everything. The customers and neighbors never complained and most of them revisited every month or so just to see what new and used furniture my father-in-law had picked up. On the backside was a garage which opened into the store. He could back in his van and unload all the furniture that he had purchased at the various estate sales, going out of business sales, garage sales, and auctions. The garage also allowed him to load furniture for delivery.
The sign above the front entrance door said JOMAC Used Furniture. My wife’s dad was often incorrectly but very respectfully called “Mr. Jomac.” He never seemed to mind. His customers thought the world of him. They would come in looking for something and if they couldn’t find it, “Mr. Jomac” always took their phone number and promised them that when he located what they wanted he would call them. He would always write the name of the needed item on his list of things to find and pick up at the coming week’s auctions or estate sales. A week later he would call them and tell them he had the item they were looking for. He would always work out a payment plan for many of his customers or neighbors as he called them. He knew many of them lived in low-income housing in town. When he had more beds or other pieces of furniture than he really needed he often simply let them take the furniture without any payment. He always remembered his customers’ names, even if they had only been in the store one time. It was just one small way in which he could show respect to his neighbors and his love of community.
“Mr. Jomac” kept lists for everything. The lists could always be found in a small notepad he kept in his shirt pocket. He started keeping a note pad and pen in his shirt pocket when he was hired as a bank teller in a small town in West Virginia after graduating from college. He eventually became President and CEO of the bank. He is he only person I know of that moved from one of the lowest positions in a bank to the highest, a real testament to his skills and love of community. When he decided to leave the bank and move to Texas to own and manage a used furniture store, a notepad and pen had now become a permanent fixture in all his shirts. They were part of who he was. All the notepads he had kept since opening the furniture store could be found in a large drawer in his small office. He never threw his notepads away. They were a portal into his life.
Shan and I often came up to the lake house (see my short story The Lake House) to see her Mom and Dad so we could escape the pressures of graduate school and campus life in general. We always stopped at JOMAC before going to the lake house to visit with her dad. “Mr. Jomac” was always trying to give us furniture for our apartment. I always went straight to the book room in the furniture store. He sold all books for 50 cents, and it was amazing what books he would pick up at estate sales.
One day my father-in-law had gone out back to the van and an elderly lady with a weathered face came in. It was warm outside, but she still had a heavy red coat on. She had a plastic bag with her, and it looked like all her possessions were in it. She asked for Mr. Jomac. I told her he would be back soon. She smiled and waited patiently.
He came into the room carrying a small table. “Well hello Mary. How are you today?”
“I’m doing OK Mr. Jomac, but my back is hurting.”
“I hate to hear that. You need to go see a doctor if it gets really bad. Do you need a ride back to your apartment?”
“I don’t think so, I can manage.”
They walked into the small office. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I saw Mary give him a twenty-dollar bill. As they came out of the office, she said, “Thank you Mr. Jomac. You’re a good man.”
It was none of my business, so I didn’t ask what was going on and I really didn’t give it much thought until many years later when Shan and I were there helping to clean out and close up JOMAC Used Furniture for the final time. “Mr. Jomac” was out for the afternoon. An elderly lady came in. It was a warm spring day, but she still had a heavy red coat on. She had a plastic bag with her, and it looked like all her possessions were in it. She asked for Mr. JOMAC.
“He’s out for the afternoon. Can I help you, mam?”
“Well, I knew he was closing the store for good today. Tell him Mary stopped by to see him. I just wanted to give him this.” She handed me a twenty-dollar bill and a handwritten note. I looked at the plastic bag, the red coat, and her weathered face and remembered her from several years ago.
She looked closely at me, “You’re his son-in-law, right?”
Before I could answer she continued, “Well, you’re a lucky man to have him as a father-in-law. He treats all people with respect. He’s a good man always looking out for and helping his neighbors. I don’t know if he’s a Christian, but he truly loves his neighbors. God bless him.” She left and started walking down the street. An hour later, my father-in-law came back, and I gave him the twenty-dollar bill and the message from Mary.
A couple of years later my father-in-law passed away. Shan and I were going through all the records he had left from the furniture store. Most were not needed to settle his estate. We ran across a box that contained some of his small notebooks and pens that he always kept in his shirt pocket. I smiled fondly when I saw them.
I opened the top notebook and there was the name Mary. It listed every time he had loaned Mary twenty dollars with the date. Looking at the dates, it looked like it was just before social security checks arrived at the end of the month. It also listed when Mary had paid him back what he had loaned her. The last entry was dated the day the store closed, and it showed that Mary had repaid the twenty dollars she had borrowed. She had always repaid the money she borrowed from him. She must have borrowed twenty dollars from him dozens of times and each time she had repaid him.
But Shan noticed that Mary wasn’t the only name. There were at least two dozen people in which he kept records of small twenty-dollar loans and when they paid him back. Looking closely at the records, we discovered that each one on the list had fully paid him back." I didn’t know what to say. It spoke volumes about the character of “Mr. Jomac” and of those people he helped over the years. Mary was right. He was a good man who truly loved his neighbors, and I was so privileged to have him as my father-in-law.
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